Lab Mouse
by techluver
Summary: What were Beck's lab mice thinking when they made the trip to Mars? Why don't you find out!
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hey y'all! This is just for fun. Reviews and comments welcome!

Mission Day 0 (at NASA mission control)

Hi! My name is Christina! I am a mouse. I feel really, really bad. I'm crammed in a cage with a bunch of other mice. There's not enough food. I don't know why I'm here. I'm in a room full of all kinds of things. There are a lot of big humans around. Wow! Humans are really large! I bet they could crush me. But they seem to be staying away so I'm really happy. Oh wow! One of the humans just came and dropped some cheese into the cage! I'm lucky, I got some. This is great! I love this. If these humans keep throwing cheese in here, we'll be set for life!

Mission day 1

All I can say is... wow! I do not know what just happened to me, but whatever it was it was really scary. A human came over and picked up our cage. Then he put it in this big thing. Number 1, it hurts us when you pick us up and put us into the big cage. Number two... wow! This is... I don't know what it is! There were a lot of loud noises, and then the cage flew up, really really high! This is higher than I've ever been in my life! I don't know what to think. On one hand, all us mice are stuck to the floor of the cage, we can't even get up! On the other hand, I bet other mice don't get to do this! This is a cool ride!

Mission day 2 (1)

OK. Now this is just strange. You know how normally when you walk, you touch the ground? Well not now, for some reason, when I walk, I float! It takes me a while to touch the ground! All us mice are having the same thing happen! We don't know why. Anyhow, it's great fun! We love playing games with it, even though we don't know why it is happening. We are using the time in the air to hit each other, and bump into each other, and it's great fun! Andy here loves to come up to me whenever we're doing this. This walking in air thing will take a little getting used to though. I wish there were more mice here, it's fun but I miss my mouse hole where there were hundreds of mice!

mission day 2 (2)

Well... this walking in air thing, has a flip side. It's really, really hard to get food! The food floats around too! Luckily I got something but that's only because Andy brought some to me. Or else I never would have figured out how to get it. Instead of a human giving it to me like before, it seems to come out through a part of the cage. I don't know how it's happening. Anyway... it's food!

mission day 7

OK... this is getting really annoying. You know... once you eat something it has to come out the other end. With several of us... the smell does get to be annoying after a while. Luckily yesterday someone came and took all the stuff away but it really does pile up. I wish those humans would actually remove the poop every day. It's really really annoying. At least we're still getting a lot of food.

Mission day 10

Something very, very scary happened today. A big, human hand came into our cage today. He grabbed one of my friends, and took her away! I don't know why! Will she come back? What will be of her when she comes back? I don't even know what's going on! Will this happen to me?

Mission day 11

Last night my friend came back. She told me that she had been taken to this place, and had a bunch of lights and things on her. We don't know why it happened, but it's obviously something the humans are doing! These humans should be feared! I mean, it's the machine that's giving us food. The humans do clean up our poop though... anyway... good night!


	2. Chapter 2

Day 12

So... we're bored. There are only like thirty of us in the cage. We need something to do.  
So it turns out the humans do feed us after all. But not the way we thought. The humans are the ones that put the food in the feeder.

In other news, Andy has been following me around. I think something's up. He's been super nice to me. He brings me food, helps me fight for it. He also likes to walk up to me and look at me. I don't know why that is. I'll have to pay a lot more attention to what he does when he's around me from now on.

They came to scoop the poop today. It's amazing how much poop we can make. I wonder what it's all used for?

Day 13

I'm actually really getting bored here. I miss when I could go exploring, but I can't. I can't figure out how to get out of the cage. It would be really fun if I could.

I ate food. I'm really bored. Andy is still stalking me. I don't know why. It is creepy.

I wish the humans would give me something to do. This being in the air is fun still, but it's not as fun as it was. I want things to go back to the way they were before. I liked it in my mouse hole. I wonder what my brothers and sisters think. A big human took me away from my hole to go into this cage. It's fun, but I want to go home.

Day 16

Wow! Today, instead of the poop being scooped by the big human that always does it, a small human came! She had a higher voice. And guess what? I was able to get out! I got out of the cage today for the first time. Well, I learned a valuable lesson; when you get out, it's really hard to find your way especially when you can't walk properly.

I eventually made it to a room, where there were six (yes, six!) humans. They were all eating so much food! Every time they put food into their mouths, they put in enough for all of us for a whole day! That's a lot of food!

I must figure out where all the food is coming from. I don't know. The humans don't seem to understand me when I squeak. They talk really loud. There's one really, really big human, bigger than the one that usually scoops the poop! He's big! This is so much more fun than the mouse cage. I think I'm going to try to steal some food from the closest human and then go away.

Day 16 (2)

Okay, so that didn't work. I don't know why, but all six humans started looking on the floor. Eventually one of them saw me! He was not happy. After a long time, they took me back to the cage. I guess all good things have to come to an end. I hope I can get out again soon! I told Andy about going exploring, and he was really jealous.


	3. Chapter 3

Day 20

So it looks like every few days or so, the big human will come, take one or two of us away, and do something. He always takes us to another room, so I don't know what they do over there. I've already been taken out, but it seems like he does something different to each of us.

I wonder when he will run out of us to do things on? Will we have to do it twice? He doesn't seem to care who he takes out, he just seems to pick us at random.

Andy is really nice. I'm beginning to like him a lot. Today we went to a small corner of the cage, and got to know each other better in (relative) privacy. I love not having to hunt for food.

Day 23

One of the other mice had a plan today. The next time the human opened the cage, we would all escape and go to all different places and see what we could find. It was a way for us to go exploring; when the humans caught us and brought us here to the cage we could all tell each other what happened and what we saw. I told them about my escape, and they thought that it was really really cool. They would catch us all eventually, but it'd be fun while it lasted!

Day 25

It happened! The great mouse breakout happened today! It was so much fun! We all got out, and explored different places. One mouse found so much food. It would be enough to feed a lot of mice for life! We must find out how to get back there.

Another mouse found that in another place, we weren't walking and floating anymore, we could walk like normal. Of course, the walk while floating had become our new normal, so it was disconcerting, but yeah.

Another mouse wound up in the big room where I saw the six humans on my own earlier escape. I guess this is a big world for us mice to explore! It took six hours, but the poor, confused humans finally caught us all and put us back in the cage. Andy was the last one to be caught, he was hiding in a room with a nice, big place to sleep. It looked like a human could sleep in there!

The crew of the Hermes were sitting in the rec, enjoying a nice lunch together.

"I really miss Helena's cooking." said Vogel.

"Well, NASA never was really famous for being fine dining," replied Martinez jokingly.

That got the whole crew laughing at the thought of NASA as a restaurant, until commander Lewis suddenly got quiet.

"What's the matter, commander?" asked Johanssen.

"I think I saw... no... it can't be..."

"What?"

"I saw a mouse!"

At these words, Beck froze in terror. He knew how that mouse had gotten there. All his experiments hinged on him having the mice; without them he would not be able to do any of the science work NASA had sent up for him.

"Sounds like the lab mice got away!" shrieked Beck.

J

ohanssen put a reassuring arm on his shoulder. "Don't worry, Hermes is a small ship, we can find them all."

At this point, Lewis took command.

"Okay. First priority is to find the mice. All your schedules are cleared until this happens. Johanssen and Beck, go check the reactor room and bridge. Vogel, the lab. Watney, look around in here to try to round them up. Martinez and I will search the crew quarters."

After four hours, they were able to round up what they thought were all the mice, and put them all in a cage.

"Command, reactor room." said Lewis over the com.

"Go, reactor room."

"How many should there be, Beck?"

"Thirty-two," replied Beck.

"Command, labs,"

"Go, labs," came the reply from Vogel.

"Vogel, how many are in the cage?"

"Wait please, let me count them."

A tense minute followed.

"Commander, I count one and thirty in the cages at the present moment."

It took another two hours before a shout came from the crew quarters. A distinctive, feminine shout.

The whole crew rushed to where the noise was coming from.

"I found this mouse... in my own bed!" Lewis shrieked.

After Beck gave her a calming pill, they returned the mouse to the cage, and it went back to business as usual. Although now they knew; Lewis is afraid of mice.


	4. Chapter 4

a/n I know this is a strange story, and I hope you like it. and yay! I finally killed off the first mouse!

Day 27 Today they did something to me. I don't know what it was, but the big human that feeds us took me to a room, and put me on this thing. It was a very smooth, shiny thing, but I do not know what it was. Then he lifted up the smooth, shiny thing, and put it on a bigger thing, and then started looking at me. There was a light on me while he was looking at me, it was very very bright. I don't know what that was.

Day 28 Wow! We all got to try some human food today. Man it tastes a lot better than the stuff they give us normally. A medium-sized human fed us today. He came up to the cage, and instead of throwing us our normal food, we got this hunk of cheese. cheese! I haven't had cheese in a long long time! Obviously there was a huge mouse scramble, but luckily there was enough cheese for all of us. He was laughing as he left the room. Man it's really nice in this mouse cage. I don't think I will ever want to leave. I love living here. It is so much fun, other than those bright lights...

Day 30 Today, I am sad to report, the passing of one of my comrades. He was a bold, brave soul, exploring the frontiers of our known universe. He died in the quest for knowledge about the world around us. One minute, the big human took him away, the next minute, I heard squeaks as he got away, and finally, a big machine started up and he was gone. We will all miss him. But life must move on. There are still thirty-one of us, and we will do all it takes to protect ourselves, in his memory. RIP.

Martinez was hungry. Having completed his work for the day, ensuring that Hermes was still headed smoothly to Mars, he decided to have a dinner meal before checking his e-mail. He put the meal in the microwave, hearing a squeak as he shut the door. He'd have to remember to tell Mark to oil the hinges on the microwave door; he himself was not proficient at all with the WD40.  
As he opened the microwave, all thoughts of WD40 left his mind as he saw, to his horror, the dead body of a mouse lying next to his food pack. At least, he thought with a grimmace, it didn't enter his food pack.  
He knew Beck would kill him, but at the same time he knew that it wasn't his fault. 


	5. Chapter 5

Day 124

Today, something really really strange happened. I was just wandering around the ship as usual, when i found a really cool box! This was an box of food! I couldn't tell what it was, it's not something I'd ever had before. So I walked in to explore, like any other good mouse would do!  
A few minutes later, someone grabbed the whole box, and without realizing I was in it, put it in a thing that rolled. It rolled and rolled so far I didn't know what was happening.  
Then the box went into a big thing, and the next thing I know, it's 23 minutes of falling. I'm falling like I've never fallen before. It's really fun! I want to ddo it again! We fell, fell, fell, until... bam!  
The question is, where are my other mouse friends? They didn't get to do the fall thing. Oh well. another issue, another time.  
We fell until we hit something. hard. but it was really fun and I want to do it again.  
But all good things must come to an end.

Sol 1

Today I write from a different place. The walking now is even harder now than it was before. I wonder if that's because of the fall?  
Today I escaped from the box...  
only to find myself in a big, huuuuuuuuge room! It was gigantic. All 6 humans were there, talking and having a good time. They seemed really happy!  
Then one of them saw me, and said something really loudly, and pushed me back in the box.

"Beck, how did a mouse get into the hab?" asked Lewis.  
"I'm sorry, commander, I don't know." responded Beck.  
"It is possible that the mouse has enterred our HAB via one of the boxes of in pressure supplies we brought down with us." said vogel.  
"aww man. One small step for mouse, one large leap for mousekind..." quipped martinez.  
"fuck..." said Watney, and the crew laughed.  
"Beck, would you go grab a medium rigid sample container and put the mouse in there? We'll feed it and then grab it on the way back up to hermes."  
"Sure thing commander," replied Beck. 


End file.
